17 state AGs favor watershed divide to fight Asian carp

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said he
and his counterparts in 16 other states would demand quicker
federal action on preventing invasive species such as Asian carp
from migrating between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River
watersheds.

Schuette told The Associated Press that a coalition of state
attorneys general reaching from West Virginia to Nevada would push
Congress and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to expedite a plan
for severing the connection between the two giant drainage basins
that engineers constructed a century ago in Chicago rivers and
canals.

Supporters contend it's the only way to slam the door on species
invasions that have disrupted aquatic ecosystems and cost billions
in damages in both basins. Local cargo shippers and their allies
say such a move would cause massive flooding and job losses in the
Chicago area.

The Army Corps has promised to conclude by 2015 a long-range
study of methods for cutting off potential avenues for species to
transfer between the two basins, including separating them by
installing dams or other structures.

But carrying out whatever the
agency recommends could take many more years, and money will be
tight. Environmental activists, state and local officials, Indian
tribes and others across most of the Great Lakes region are
pleading with the Corps to move faster.

Five states -- Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin -- are pressing a federal lawsuit that accuses the Army
Corps and Chicago's municipal water agency of operating a public
nuisance and demands the quickest possible action to physically
separate the Great Lakes and Mississippi systems.

Search for carp on the St. CroixMPR Photo/Jeffrey Thompson

The attorneys
general from those states and New York said in August they would
try to assemble a nationwide coalition in favor of separation.

Illinois and Indiana, the other two states adjoining the Great
Lakes, haven't joined the lawsuits. Indiana officials say blocking
the waterways could cause economic problems for their communities
near Chicago.

Schuette said the idea of separation has now drawn endorsements
from attorneys general in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa,
Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and
Wyoming.

It's unclear what practical effect the attorneys generals'
campaign could have, with the lawsuit by the five states already
pending. The U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts have refused to
order the Army Corps to expedite its study or take temporary
measures such as closing Chicago-area shipping locks that could
provide a pathway to Lake Michigan for Asian carp.

Still, as political leaders and chief legal strategists for
their state governments, the attorneys general could wield
considerable influence, said Joel Brammeier, president of the
Alliance for the Great Lakes, an environmental advocacy group.

"They're guardians of their states' resources and they're
helping to monitor threats from other places," Brammeier said.
"They're well within their bounds to be pushing for a faster
timeline on this, because they know what's at stake."

“This national coalition will make our message loud and clear: It is time
to shut down the invasive species highway.”

Michigan AG Bill Schuette

Many of the states that are new members of the coalition have
suffered ill effects of invasions by species such as zebra and
quagga mussels, which hitched rides from central Europe to the
Great Lakes in the ballast tanks of oceangoing freight ships.

After
colonizing the Great Lakes, they moved into the Mississippi basin
and have infested waterways as far south as the Arkansas River and
west to Lake Mead, which supplies water for drinking and irrigation
to much of southern Nevada, southern California and Arizona.

"With jobs at stake and the ecology of our waters at risk, this
national coalition will make our message loud and clear: It is time
to shut down the invasive species highway," Schuette said. "I am
honored to be joined by attorneys general from across our country
asking for immediate action to combat a looming crisis in our
waters."

The Army Corps declined to comment on Schuette's announcement.
Corps officials have said repeatedly their schedule was reasonable
given the complex scientific and engineering issues involved. Maj.
Gen. John Peabody, who until recently was commander of the Corps' Great Lakes and Ohio River Division, said last month he welcomed
the involvement of state officials in developing the study.

"I do not believe the Corps is dragging their feet," said Kay
Nelson, a spokeswoman for UnLock Our Jobs, a coalition representing
Chicago-area businesses including barge and tour boat operators.
"It's an extensive job they've been given."

The Corps operates an electric barrier on a shipping canal south
of Chicago that is designed to prevent fish from swimming between
the two drainage basins. The agency says it is working well, but
some fear otherwise because scientists have detected Asian carp DNA
in water samples beyond the barrier.

Much of the recent debate over species invasions through the
Chicago-area waterways has focused on the threat that bighead and
silver carp, both Asian species migrating northward in the
Mississippi and its tributaries, pose to the Great Lakes and their
$7 billion fishing industry. But many states are worrying about
being on the receiving end of invasions from the Great Lakes,
Brammeier said.

"The most passionate testimony that I heard in two
congressional hearings about Asian carp back in 2010 came from a
fish and wildlife state director from Kansas, not the Great
Lakes," Brammeier said. "He understood the impact that zebra
mussels and other invasives had had on his state's resources."